Tilray Shares Are Going Absolutely Haywire -- Here's Why

A full-blown mania has descended into the market for Tilray (TLRY) , setting the cannabis stock ablaze.

It may end badly, but for nimble traders in Tilray the good times are likely to continue flowing as the hype on the company's prospects reach fever pitch levels. Tilray shares spiked as much as 90% on Wednesday's session following a bullish interview by CEO Brendan Kennedy on 'Mad Money', hosted by TheStreet's founder Jim Cramer.

The stock has exploded 890% since the company's well-received IPO in late July.

The Bet

"This industry [cannabis] is disrupting the pharmaceutical industry, cannabis is a threat to prescription based painkillers primarily opiods," explained Kennedy in an interview with TheStreet on the day of its July IPO. "It's definitely a threat to companies in the alcohol industry who see cannabis as a substitute -- it's also a threat to some of the functional food and beverage companies who don't look at THC as an ingredient but look at CBS as an ingredient in CBD water or CBD exercise or recovery drink."

Kennedy said people would be "surprised" by how many large companies, starved for growth in many cases, have looked at getting into the cannabis space.

Wine and spirit giant Constellation Brands ( STZ) was among the first to sniff out the opportunity in cannabis, spending $191 million in 2017 for a 9.9% stake in Canopy Growth. Constellation has since dropped $4 billion more to raise its stake in Canopy Growth to 38%.

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